On the UK’s Sanctions on Settlement Goods and more
JVL welcomes the sanctions on Israeli settlement goods announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in response to Israel’s multiple crimes against the Palestinian people. The moves, while late and insufficient, represent an advance on the inaction of previous governments, including that of Keir Starmer. We welcome the ban on provision of services supporting the construction of illegal settlements and the outlawing of events, like the recent one in Edgware, promoting the sale of settlement properties.
This is not a case of unilateral UK action. It aligns Britain with a dozen other countries making similar moves, including France, Canada and Ireland. Spain has gone further and implemented a full arms embargo, which we urge Britain to emulate. After years of ineffectual words and occasional action against a few individuals, at last we can see a potentially significant shift towards holding the state of Israel to account.
Much more needs to be done and we welcome the Foreign Secretary’s acknowledgement that campaigning by people of all backgrounds, nationally and internationally, and young people in particular, has a positive role to play. Demonstrations against what the government has clearly identified as ethnic cleansing are not “hate marches”.
We condemn accusations of antisemitism (or to quote Mike Huckabee, “Jew Hate”) levelled against Ed Miliband, who is Jewish, for the steps he has outlined today. We join with the Foreign Secretary in rejecting all attempts to associate British Jews collectively with the actions of a rogue state, evoking a classic antisemitic trope. All too often it is Israel’s supporters rather than its critics who conflate British Jews with Israel, attempting to suppress criticism of Israel’s actions with allegations of antisemitism. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who claimed that sanctions will have a “negative impact” on British Jews, has shown no compassion for the Palestinian people and explicitly referred to Israel’s army in Gaza as “our heroic soldiers”.
Responses from other Israel apologists are also predictable and pathetic. For example, MP Peter Prinsley, former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, claimed the time is not right for sanctions. But for all who take his view, there will never by a right time to hold Israel to account.
We hope that the limited UK action announced today, along with other nations, will at least slow down the pace of Israel’s heinous and ongoing assaults on the Palestinians. But we are not optimistic. Israel has already retaliated by closing the British consulate in Jerusalem and banning a number of pro-Palestinian MPs from entering the country, and there have been threats of counter-measures from US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. We urge the Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister to recognise the Israeli state’s determination to pursue its expansionist goals and urgently start preparing plans for more forceful action against it.
We echo UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s opinion that a settlement trade ban has to be part of “a true paradigm shift to Israel-Palestine that ultimately seeks to implement the international court of justice advisory opinion in 2024”. This stated that Israel’s presence in the occupied territories was ‘unlawful in its entirety’. The opinion rules, she says, that, “all states carry an obligation…not to recognise the situation as legal, and not render aid and assistance in maintaining it”.
JVL has provided an excellent, factual, coherent and balanced summary.
JVL has also contributed substantially to the progress being made.
Thank you again, JVL
Agreed, and I feel proud to have Ed Milliband as our new Foreigh Secretary, who spoke with passion about his grandmother who was given refuge, and the Kibbutz where he spent time as a child. It’s high time that Israel the thug of the middle east got told off, and their response is a predictable one- by throwing their toys out the pram, they are showing the world, yet again, how awful they are. Good riddance. More sanctions please! We must go further.
An excellent statement – thank you.
The “Times of Israel” has provided Ed Miliband’s speech to Parliament in full and written two other full and detailed articles.
At least one of the “below the line” posts points out the links between the settlers’ violence and the 12 countries now taking action against them … that’s progress!
Omar Barghouti [of the BDS] described the British government announcement as ‘performative politics’. When our ill-gotten leaders stop arms sales, intelligence exchanges and [just as bad] working with Israel to add to global warming down in the South Atlantic, it is will mean something
excellent not before time. Sanctions against genocidal Israel should have been done years ago. It needs to be much more comprensive to include all trade with Isreal regardless
Solidarity JVL.
I think Ed Miliband has taken a long overdue step in the right direction. Let us make sure those sanctions are words in action.
Already the entities that don’t like it have bemoaned it will promote ‘antisemitism’. How? I don’t know, but that always seems to be the ‘go to’ line when anyone supports Palestine.
‘All states carry an obligation…’
Milliband followed up with a decent round of media appearances this morning and particularly impressive in being prepared to publicly state that he doesn’t agree with the Chief Rabbi – though the usual suspects are digging in in their criticism of him. But the question begged is exactly what is the ‘2 state solution’ that he envisages? What borders? What timeline? Who /what process to mediate it? Although plans for E1 are said to be a red line even without that the viability of a Palestinian state in the fractured West Bank (what happens to the 750,000 settlers?) let alone a ruined Gaza is remote. No Israeli politician has any interest in a ‘2 state solution’. There will be no freedom for Palestinians until a full dismantling of the Zionist state, not sure that Milliband, brave though he’s been, gets that.
John Kay is spot on. The JVL statement, while commendable, does not go far enough. It should have stated that full sanctions and a complete trade and arms embargo should be applied to completely isolate Israel and its expulsion sought from membership of the UN. Only total decolonisation will suffice to bring real freedom,justice and peace for all in historic Palestine. Miliband still swore his fealty to the Israeli state and was not specific how far the sanctions will go, still persisted in calling Gaza as being ‘ethnically cleansed’ rather than a it being the subject of a full blown and ongoing genocide. He should have issued a condemnation of Israel’s illegal wars of aggression and the killings, destruction and land grabbing in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Much more work needs to be done to stop this deranged carnage.